I don't remember noticing the officials. No blown calls ... no slowing down the game ... they had clothes on. So when I heard that one NFL replacement official, Craig Ochoa, used to call games in the LFL, I didn't see the big deal.

If anything, Ochoa would be more focused, and he would probably err on the side of caution when it came to flags.

The NFL told its coaches to say nice things about the replacement officials, and no one watched last week's Hall of Fame game, in which Ochoa was the referee. This week, there were a lot of stories on Shannon Eastin, a line judge in the Packers-Chargers game on ESPN and the first woman to officiate an NFL game.

The league was proud of that public-relations coup, and had to be thinking: The fans think the officials stink every year - how low could the bar go?

There were six games on the docket Thursday night, and the locked-out officials' leverage skyrocketed. There were blown calls left and right, including one in the Bills-Redskins game where the ball was downed at the 4 and ruled a touchback.

(On the bright side, the replacement official in 2001 who asked for Jerry Rice's autograph before the game is walking around a little taller today.)

None of the replacement officials came from a Division I conference, and the usual NFL trainers balked at helping out "scabs," out of loyalty to the officials they used to work with.

So Thursday night, you had a bunch of unqualified, under-prepared high school and junior college officials trying to keep up with the fastest sport that has varying degrees of guys getting mugged and/or steamrolled on every play.

Roger Goodell has had his hands full the last two offseasons, and he thinks of himself as a hard-liner. But the commissioner needs to back down and give the real officials whatever they want. There is enough money in his piggy bank that it shouldn't sting too badly.

Otherwise, all the great players in the league will take second billing to a lingerie official and his undressed buddies.